Yesterday and they day before we worked on 12 weave poles. She kept popping out around half way through. I could see her head come up and start to look at me and out she popped. So that's must be caused by my training of rewarding at my side after 6 poles. Ugh!!! Yesterday we had problems with popping out around the 9th and 10 th pole. But I was now throwing the tug/bait bag when she is finishing the weaves. I think some of the problem is just practice but I think all the leaves in the back yard were a problem to. When they are on the metal base she slipped a couple of times which wrecked her rhythm. I rake some and made my son mow the back yard to mulch the leaves. My other problem is the bases of the weaves. They are metal bases with three poles that you lay down end to end. My backyard isn't flat , so sometimes I think her little feet get caught on the side pieces. I never had this problem with Guiness. Its not like the pieces are sticking way up or anything but probably just enough to cause her a problem. ( at least I think). I do have 6 stick in the ground poles, so I switched to 6 of those and 6 of the others and she did much better. Maybe I should buy 6 more stick in the ground poles. The only problem with the stick in the ground ones is they give a little when the dogs goes through them. And I thought that at the trial when she hit that pole so hard it was because she was use to the poles giving, so I haven't been using them.
I'm still practicing the 2o/2o. I thought she was really getting it but then yesterday we had a failure. She hasn't been on the dogwalk except the bottom since starting this. When I ran her through a sequence yesterday I had taken the cone off the bottom of the dogwalk to use it for something else and forgot to put it back. So when I ran the sequence I must of cued her wrong or she just wanted to run and she ran the dogwalk. Never stop or even slowed down, right off the bottom of the dogwalk into a tunnel that was off to the side of the yard to dry out. That was very disappointing and shows how much more work I have to do.
Wordless Wednesday
1 day ago
4 comments:
you should train with odd number of poles for a while- 5 or 8...instead of 6...even 13 or 11 instead of 12..
as for the failure on the dogwalk you have to remember that is all she knows really is to run it all the way through. She isn't going to put it together that you want her to do the same behavior that you do on the flat and with no speed. You have to do lots and lots of backchaining before you ask her to do a full dogwalk and expect her to stop.
Start just a foot from the end. Send her to the target position. Once she is doing that, back up a foot...until you are doing the whole dogwalk. She'll get it and I think she is doing great!
Why the odd number of poles? Diana
Do you train with wire on the weaves? If yes, you may want to try to put the wire on and run for a few times before removing the wire. My older sheltie Sing used to pop out at 9th pole for a long time and he has not been trained on wire, but I was tought to run in a straight line pretending there are more weaves after the 12th the pole and before him finishing the 12th pole, don't even look at the next obstacle and this seems to work.
odd number of poles teach the dog to finish weaving- with a dog who pops out at poles 6, 8 or 10 the problem sometimes can be that the dog isn't looking for the next pole-and is only looking for the reward. We tend to reward off our person a lot and that makes the dog not want to weave away. By only weaving odd number poles your dog learns to keep looking as they always end going away from you to get the reward(towards the next pole) does that make sense? Always make sure to randomize the reward too- throw it and don't always feed them towards you. If you clicker this can be a good way too as you can delay the actual reward but still mark the behaviour you want...
We quite often train with different number of poles- three if we are working on entries, odd number if your dog is popping etc. It is pretty amazing what difference it makes to change something so simple.
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